The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

schedule for 2005 and commit appropriate resources
for planning and execution. The exercise, “Peace Mission-2005,”
was to be conducted based on the United
Nations (UN) Charter and in accordance with “generally
recognized international laws and the principle of
respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
other countries.” At the end of January 2005, the Russian
first vice minister for national defense declared
the hypothetical enemy was “terrorists on a global
scale.” 21
The scenario for “Peace Mission-2005” involved
Countries N (Russia) and V (China) responding to the
aid of Country S. According to Russian reporting, as a
result of the “sharp worsening in the domestic-political
situation on political, economic, interethnic, and
religious grounds, the confrontation of the two main
peoples populating the country [S] was starting to
turn into total mutual destruction.” After “opposition
forces and armed formations seized a number of cities
and rural regions in the western part of the state and
established their own government there. . . . Country
S turned to the international community with an initiative
on adopting measures to prevent the internal
conflict from possibly escalating into a local war.”
The mission of forces from Countries N and V was to
restore “constitutional order effectively and with the
least losses in the territory of State S.” 22 With respect
to Beijing’s foreign policy principle of “noninterference”
in the internal affairs of other countries, “Peace
Mission’s” intervention in Country S’s affairs was
“legal” because “the international community,” i.e.,
the UN, approved Country S’s appeal for help. With
some local modifications, such a scenario could arguably
apply to real-world situations found in Lebanon,
Somalia, or Afghanistan.
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